I know! It's so easy to get to 495 quickly! That's why we have leagues of well geared raiders beating down our door to apply and give us that push we need to get over the line for Spirit Kings H!

Oh wait. That was just a nostalgic fantasy.

If you're progressing through heroic content, you've come upon several pieces of 496 regular gear, and 483 HoF/Terrace LFR. I'm sure those 6 iLvls over LFR gear (.06 on your total character sheet per item) is what'll push your guild over the edge. I personally like to iterate on strategy, make my team better by identifying holes in our play style.

You should totally force new recruits to grind six sets of dailies every day. That way they can unlock everything, afford nothing, and have no more content to keep them engaged. Now they can grab that 6 ilvl upgrade in two weeks by just running LFR and one dungeon per day. They can gear up again another two weeks later, and another one two weeks after that. This is all assuming they last the three weeks it takes at maybe 2.5 hours a day to get all that done. If not, you can repeat the cycle when they get burnt out, and you need another set of undergeared raiders.

OR! You can do something more cost effective (and daily free!!!!!!) by upgrading the iLvl of your current gear. Maybe you can finally kill something with your somehow battered, beaten, and subjugated group of misfits. You'll get a whole extra 2 item levels too!

Additionally, if you're progressing in heroic content, you have the materials available to craft upper-tier Blacksmithing, Leatherworking, and Tailoring gear. Feel free to shard unneeded gear from normal modes, and craft something more useful. After all, mats aren't so expensive when you get it right from the source.

I've already demonstrated that though reputation gain is variable, Valor gain is linear. It doesn't matter how fast you grind reputation, your gear is hindered by the Valor cap. There's nothing you can say to make that untrue. You're forced to farm Valor far more so than you are dailies.

If your server lacks geared players to replace the ones that burned themselves out trying to grind everything, your server suffers from a greater problem than 'loldailies'

By the way they acknowledged this about 2 weeks after launch so way to keep up. Of course they know as well as anybody who actually uses their own brain rather than plugging into the mind hive of MMO-C forums that Dailies were not at all mandatory to maintain a competetive edge as skill > gear and gear = not tied to dailies anyway if you were competent enough to run heroic MSV after a week or two. But so many failers couldn't do that in 25 so they felt they had to use Valor to support them.

And of course, WoW is so totally gear-independent that equal skill with better gear isn't > equal skill with lesser gear and lesser gear can never ever ever happen by RNG forcing players to rely on valor gear to fill in gaps... Skill has nothing to do with beating the RNG, but lesser charms giving bonus rolls on key bosses does and to say otherwise is basically as nonsensical as it would be to deny that overall in WoW gear plays a roll on par with skill, if not far in excess.

Average skill and sufficient ilvl can beat content. Perfection and insufficient ilvl cannot. So in the end gear is paramount.

The number of players running heroic anything after "a couple of weeks" is so small as to be unworthy of notice in a 10 million player environment. You are basically insane to think Blizzard is going to disregard your so-called "failers", who constitute 99% of their customers. No game, no sport no nothing is designed so that only the top 1% can play or can earn the equipment to play the game.

Can I buy the same golf clubs as Tiger Woods? Yes.
Can I play on the same size basketball, tennis, baseball, football courts/fields and with the same equipment as world elite professional and amateurs? Yes

If I play chess with a world grand master, do I have the same pieces that move the same way? Yes I do.

In no competitive endeavor that is truly successful across large populations are the TOOLS OF PLAYING denied to people based on their skill level.

It is a fundamental flaw in MMO design that either requires constant gear resets (as WoW has largely done until now) or expects that millions of customers will accept long term second tier status because of "progression"/rich get richer raiding structures. That type of system worked for EQ which never had more than 500k or so customers and after it reached a point where most guilds got locked further and further behind in new content, even that level of subs didn't hold.

Heroic raids existence doesn't negate the role or need for valor gear and as long as valor gear is locked behind some rep or the other, whatever it is that gives that rep will be as mandatory as anything else in the game, regardless of however many semantic arguments you make or how many times you claim that running heroic raids is a viable gearing path for any reasonable number of players.

I've already demonstrated that though reputation gain is variable, Valor gain is linear. It doesn't matter how fast you grind reputation, your gear is hindered by the Valor cap. There's nothing you can say to make that untrue. If your server lacks geared players to replace the ones that burned themselves out trying to grind everything, your server suffers from a greater problem than 'loldailies'

That's pile of BS:
1. Rep gains are linear as much as VP gains. You can't get more than 1000 VP per week the same way you can't do more dailies per week than available. You can do less dailes, so you can get less VP than a cap
2. Without doing dailies, the only thing that hinders gear - is reputation.

All right, gentlemen, let's review. The year is 2018 - that's two-zero-one-eight, as in the 21st Century - and I am sorry to say the world has become a pussy-whipped, Brady Bunch version of itself, run by a bunch of robed sissies.

That's pile of BS:
1. Rep gains are linear as much as VP gains. You can't get more than 1000 VP per week the same way you can't do more dailies per week than available. You can do less dailes, so you can get less VP than a cap
2. Without doing dailies, the only thing that hinders gear - is reputation.

Linear was a poor choice in words, but the concept still stands. Your reputation gain is completely ineffective without the supporting valor. Grinding all of your reputations to cap in three weeks does you no good when you can only afford 3000/29500 valor worth of gear.

In prior expansions, you'd still only have 3000 valour, and you'd still only be able to afford two items. The only difference is spending time playing the game outside of a dungeon or capital city to obtain it.

If you're progressing through heroic content, you've come upon several pieces of 496 regular gear, and 483 HoF/Terrace LFR. I'm sure those 6 iLvls over LFR gear (.06 on your total character sheet per item) is what'll push your guild over the edge. I personally like to iterate on strategy, make my team better by identifying holes in our play style.

You should totally force new recruits to grind six sets of dailies every day. That way they can unlock everything, afford nothing, and have no more content to keep them engaged. Now they can grab that 6 ilvl upgrade in two weeks by just running LFR and one dungeon per day. They can gear up again another two weeks later, and another one two weeks after that. This is all assuming they last the three weeks it takes at maybe 2.5 hours a day to get all that done. If not, you can repeat the cycle when they get burnt out, and you need another set of undergeared raiders.

OR! You can do something more cost effective (and daily free!!!!!!) by upgrading the iLvl of your current gear. Maybe you can finally kill something with your somehow battered, beaten, and subjugated group of misfits. You'll get a whole extra 2 item levels too!

Additionally, if you're progressing in heroic content, you have the materials available to craft upper-tier Blacksmithing, Leatherworking, and Tailoring gear. Feel free to shard unneeded gear from normal modes, and craft something more useful. After all, mats aren't so expensive when you get it right from the source.

I've already demonstrated that though reputation gain is variable, Valor gain is linear. It doesn't matter how fast you grind reputation, your gear is hindered by the Valor cap. There's nothing you can say to make that untrue. You're forced to farm Valor far more so than you are dailies.

If your server lacks geared players to replace the ones that burned themselves out trying to grind everything, your server suffers from a greater problem than 'loldailies'

You completely miss the point. People who aren't in raids can't easily keep up with raider gear progression. They're not progressing far in normals and if they don't do dailies they're stuck at LFR. You can keep making excuses for the current process as much as you want and even if I admit you're right it still won't change the reality of our situation.

If you're progressing through heroic content, you've come upon several pieces of 496 regular gear, and 483 HoF/Terrace LFR. I'm sure that 6 iLvls from Valor over LFR gear is what'll push your guild over the edge. I personally like to iterate on strategy, make my team better by identifying holes in our play style.

You should totally force new recruits to grind six sets of dailies every day. That way they can unlock everything, afford nothing, and have no more content to keep them engaged. Now they can grab that 6 ilvl upgrade in two weeks by just running LFR and one dungeon per day. They can gear up again another two weeks later, and another one two weeks after that. This is all assuming they last the three weeks it takes at maybe 2.5 hours a day to get all that done. If not, you can repeat the cycle when they get burnt out, and you need another set of undergeared raiders.

OR! You can do something more cost effective (and daily free!!!!!!) by upgrading the iLvl of your current gear. Maybe you can finally kill something with your somehow battered, beaten, and subjugated group of misfits. You'll get a whole extra 2 item levels too!

I've already demonstrated that though reputation gain is variable, Valor gain is linear. It doesn't matter how fast you grind reputation, your gear is hindered by the Valor cap. There's nothing you can say to make that untrue. If your server lacks geared players to replace the ones that burned themselves out trying to grind everything, your server suffers from a greater problem than 'loldailies'

Potentially no you haven't. While that gear may be distributed it is quite likely that their are several people who don't have 496 regular and hof or terrace/lfr gear. I agree that the valor cap is bad but so was double gating everything. Like I could cap out valor and not be able to spend it. That'd be pretty shitty. Upgrading gear doesn't and never will have the same feeling of reward as getting a new piece of gear either through a boss drop or purchasing it. In the end the whole go slow philosophy is junk. You said earlier it didn't come with a change in player psychology and why should it? It's a bad change and I'm glad people are throwing a fit over it. Blizzard doesn't get to dictate to us what we should and shouldn't accept. That's not how it works. In fact GC said something very simliar to exactly that in a tweet like a month or so ago

We need to get the community back to a place where incremental progress is satisfying.

That pissed me off when I read it because I'm not sure Blizzard is the kind of business where they can get away with that. Like can you imagine if the crew trainer at Mcdonalds took your order then look backed and you and said "now let me tell you what you need". It's bullshit and it's not gonna happen anyway.

You completely miss the point. People who aren't in raids can't easily keep up with raider gear progression. They're not progressing far in normals and if they don't do dailies they're stuck at LFR. You can keep making excuses for the current process as much as you want and even if I admit you're right it still won't change the reality of our situation.

I was responding to your hypothetical about Heroic raiding progression. Rejecting my post by changing the parameters of the discussion doesn't make you any more correct.

First tier raid content is balanced around dungeon heroic gear, with the assumption that you'll supplement with LFR gear, both of which are independently accessible. The only thing that stops players from progressing through normal mode is a time investment to raid.

Valor gear is intended to supplement players who may not be lucky enough to see their gear drop; It is not an alternative. We saw Valor gear become mandatory in Cataclysm. That has changed with MoP, and life goes on.

It's not the greatest, I've admitted that in earlier posts. Yet again, though, it's nowhere near game breaking. If you can't invest time into raiding, can't invest time into questing... what are you doing with your play time that makes gear progression so important? These problems don't affect exclusive PvP players... so please explain to me which player throws up their subscription, and then just doesn't play the game?

Valor gear is intended to supplement players who may not be lucky enough to see their gear drop. In cataclysm it effectively became an alternative rather than a supplement. That has changed with MoP, and life goes on.

Then it would stand to reason that it should have been something you could acquire by raiding... which it wasn't at launch. Now they've changed it so that you can get the rep by running raids but in reality they've just brought back double dipping. It's great. I love doing lfr anyway and getting rep while doing it is phenomenal. One step back to tabards.

The reality was of course that it wasn't an alternative in cataclysm. That's an exaggeration. Especially when they announced that tier gear wasn't available through the vendors and especially when the heroic pieces were better anyway. IF you accept their condition that getting boss drops is more satisfying (which I don't but let's argue it for a minute) then the answer wasn't to severely neuter the acquisition of the gear but rather to make it less appealing through itemization. Valor gear can still be an alternative and raiders can still want normal dungeon gear which would be better itemized. If you don't accept the whole loot should come from bosses because RNG is awesome then we can delink the valor gear from rep. In any case it doesn't really matter. They went overboard this expansion as usual. They'll be inching it back slowly till the next one and then go overboard again. Can't wait to see what's next.

Linear was a poor choice in words, but the concept still stands. Your reputation gain is completely ineffective without the supporting valor. Grinding all of your reputations to cap in three weeks does you no good when you can only afford 3000/29500 valor worth of gear.

That's the whole problem with reputation. First of all you cannot possibly get every reputation to exalted (even revered) in three weeks - it takes way more time.
Second, without reputation your valor gain is wasted since you are at the cap already. Doing dailies give VP. So if yo uare valor capped and can't spend valor and do dailies to unlock vendors - you waste VP.
That is why VP vendors behind reputation is abomination.
You have to do dailies. To spend VP.
If you do not do em (or do em slowly at your own pace) - you won't spend VP at all. It is a lot easier to get 3000 VP than slowly grind all the reputation.

You mean being required to do dailies to spend VP. It changes everything. I don't remember a time in wow when we were required to do dailies at all. they were a thing to do if you wanted to.

Originally Posted by Bashkar

In prior expansions, you'd still only have 3000 valour, and you'd still only be able to afford two items. The only difference is spending time playing the game outside of a dungeon or capital city to obtain it.

That's the most horrible difference. People do not like dailies. And they do not like to be forced to do them even more.

All right, gentlemen, let's review. The year is 2018 - that's two-zero-one-eight, as in the 21st Century - and I am sorry to say the world has become a pussy-whipped, Brady Bunch version of itself, run by a bunch of robed sissies.

That's the whole problem with reputation. First of all you cannot possibly get every reputation to exalted (even revered) in three weeks - it takes way more time.
Second, without reputation your valor gain is wasted since you are at the cap already. Doing dailies give VP. So if yo uare valor capped and can't spend valor and do dailies to unlock vendors - you waste VP.
That is why VP vendors behind reputation is abomination.
You have to do dailies. To spend VP.
If you do not do em (or do em slowly at your own pace) - you won't spend VP at all. It is a lot easier to get 3000 VP then slowly grind all the reputation.

You mean being required to do dailies to spend VP. It changes everything. I don't remember a time in wow when we were required to do dailies at all. they were a thing to do if you wanted to.

That's the most horrible difference. People do not like dailies. And they do not like to be forced to do them even more.

In addition to all of this their is the potential that even once you acquire a certain rep with that faction you may not need that particular piece of gear which means for another week your sitting on valor points. This was pretty bad for GL because it tied two other factions behind it so you were there waiting for shit to get together. Ultimately though Mr.Garak is quite accurate, having to earn the privelege to spend the points you already invested time to earn is horrible.

That pissed me off when I read it because I'm not sure Blizzard is the kind of business where they can get away with that. Like can you imagine if the crew trainer at Mcdonalds took your order then look backed and you and said "now let me tell you what you need". It's bullshit and it's not gonna happen anyway.

The analogy is only valid if there's a stipulation for ordering a double quarter-pounder, with only one patty. The stipulation is that you require a specific amount of change (x number of quarters, dimes, etc) in order for you to get your meal.

Now, you could just as feasibly order a quarterpounder, and be satisfied, but you're insistent that you order a Double QP with only one patty. The end result is the same, and there's just as much food in your bag, but it's not satisfactory?

That ultimately how I view this discussion. Having the stipulation in place is annoying, and possibly unnecessary, but it's not that big of a deal considering you can still get what you want.

My point was that we can't find enough people to go forward. Part of this is that skilled and determined players can't do this easily or without hours of busywork over periods of months and catchup is still extremely slow and limited by RNG. I know because I'm doing it right now. The only thing that has saved me is my old guild putting up with me gimping raid dps a bit until I get up to their gear levels. Without that level of support the task as hand probably would have had me quitting straight away.

Look if you're just going to keep denying that we're hurting we've reached an impasse. We don't have world class raiders. We're hanging out at 5/16H. We're probably going to die soon as a raid group without some sort of massive and comprehensive intervention with non-raid character progression. I understand your sentiment that VP gear shouldn't be some sort of crutch but the reality is that it is. If nothing else it's always been a predictable and steady increase in power. Without access to it you either need excellent out groups and good RNG.

It isn't 2004 and the bar isn't "better than Everquest" anymore. Without accessible raiding, social raiding not that toxic LFR cesspool, along with a wide variety and large amount of content this game will wither on the vine. So you don't have to take our concerns seriously or even consider them as valid but don't be surprised if you're the last one left when they turn the lights off.

People do not like dailies. And they do not like to be forced to do them even more.

This is where the discussion comes full circle. You're only forced if you're chasing a specific set of gear and refuse to run LFR or upgrade gear with valor.

You never see the terms "forced to raid" or "forced to engage in organized pvp" but these are the end goal of a gear based progression system. There are other ways to reach your threshold as a player, but rejecting them because 'you don't like it,' but want the gear anyway, defeats the purpose of the whole genre.

Originally Posted by Elim Garak

You mean being required to do dailies to spend VP. It changes everything. I don't remember a time in wow when we were required to do dailies at all. they were a thing to do if you wanted to.

Which resulted in a dead, completely vacant world, and a full Stormwind/Orgrimmar of afk players just waiting for their queue to pop/

This is not a vacuum, there are other goals and objectives that need to be assessed. Something inevitably has to give. The goal was to get the world busy again, open up players to the rest of their server, cultivate world PvP, and add some length to a game that just six months ago had absolutely nothing going for it.

I understand that some players are hurting. And again, my posts are being looked at from a hostile "tough shit" angle when that is not the intent. The point is... it's not that bad. As much as people loathe, lament, and cry out with disdain... it's not that bad. The game is not dying because of dailies, and sensationalizing the effects of having reputations makes it harder for me to sympathize with you.

The divide ultimately boils down to what people think valor gear is, what they're entitled to, and what they should have to do in order to get it. I get the frustration, but it's not that bad.

The analogy is only valid if there's a stipulation for ordering a double quarter-pounder, with only one patty. The stipulation is that you require a specific amount of change (x number of quarters, dimes, etc) in order for you to get your meal.

Now, you could just as feasibly order a quarterpounder, and be satisfied, but you're insistent that you order a Double QP with only one patty. The end result is the same, and there's just as much food in your bag, but it's not satisfactory?

That ultimately how I view this discussion. Having the stipulation in place is annoying, and possibly unnecessary, but it's not that big of a deal considering you can still get what you want.

Customer satisfaction is getting what you want even if it's the same as something else being offered. First of all "incremental progress" isn't a quater pounder or double quarter pounder. It is very much better for some than others. The equivalency you made doesn't apply in the game. Especially when you tie reward to the whole mix. Nobody want's to be farming 5.0 when 5.2 comes out because it's just the lesser reward. Nobody want's item 456 when Item 568 is out. Nobody want's to accept less when others are getting more. Second of all in terms of customer satisfaction it's really irellevant. The McDonalds clerk doesn't turn around tell you what you need, she or he simple says "that's against our policy" or "yes sir we can do that for you". Ghostcralwer doesn't get to tell us what we need. That's not how this business transaction works. Blizzard isn't that type of business. In fact I'm not really sure such a type of business exists. It's an inverted relationship. Customers generally tell companies what they need and companies either fufill that requirement or they don't.

Ghostcralwer doesn't get to tell us what we need. That's not how this business transaction works. Blizzard isn't that type of business. In fact I'm not really sure such a type of business exists. It's an inverted relationship. Customers generally tell companies what they need and companies either fufill that requirement or they don't.

But this isn't a binary "need" or "don't need" You're not buying a product, you're paying for a service. This service has 10 million players who have different needs and wants. They get to stipulate what service they provide to you, and take feedback to adjust to the general population. They've made the adjustment based off of the feedback, and there's nothing wrong with that. There are some of us, however, who really didn't see a problem, and are taken aback by the reaction of some players who don't seem to actually want to play the game. That's it. It's about:

Game is Unplayable versus Game is Fine.

not

Game is Unplayable versus Game is Perfect.

The 'hurting' side of this discussion seems to be completely missing that.

This is where the discussion comes full circle. You're only forced if you're chasing a specific set of gear and refuse to run LFR or upgrade gear with valor.

You never see the terms "forced to raid" or "forced to engage in organized pvp" but these are the end goal of a gear based progression system. There are other ways to reach your threshold as a player, but rejecting them because 'you don't like it,' but want the gear anyway, defeats the purpose of the whole genre.

Which resulted in a dead, completely vacant world, and a full Stormwind/Orgrimmar of afk players just waiting for their queue to pop/

This is not a vacuum, there are other goals and objectives that need to be assessed. Something inevitably has to give. The goal was to get the world busy again, open up players to the rest of their server, cultivate world PvP, and add some length to a game that just six months ago had absolutely nothing going for it.

Nobody complains about being forced to run pvp because gearing in PVP isn't succeptible to RNG. God I wish it was. Then you'd see complaints. Nobody is refusing to do either lfr or upgrade points but neither one is GUARANTEED TO RESULT IN NEW GEAR. In other words dailies are the only guarantee of reward in this game for PVE players.

Every other way to reach your threshold as a player in the game is determined by RNG, either/or inaccessible by many. Forcing YES FORCING players to do dailies to overcome the developers obssesion with RNG is bad. If the alternatives were guaranteed like dailes you may have a point. Currently you don't and the developers have acknowledged it.

---------- Post added 2013-03-03 at 11:01 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Bashkar

But this isn't a binary "need" or "don't need" You're not buying a product, you're paying for a service. This service has 10 million players who have different needs and wants. They get to stipulate what service they provide to you, and take feedback to adjust to the general population. They've made the adjustment based off of the feedback, and there's nothing wrong with that. There are some of us, however, who really didn't see a problem, and are taken aback by the reaction of some players who don't seem to actually want to play the game.

It's not so much that we don't want to play the game, it's just we want better rewards. We don't want to have to grind, some of us can't afford the time but we still like to progress and keep up. In the end their design caters to those who have an enourmous amount of time and can go ahead and do all these things while leaving us in the dust. As you said yourself it's not a vacuum. Rewards exist for everybody and if it's to slow people are going to complain. Not because they don't want to play the game but because the experience isn't as rewarding for the time they can invest. I played WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY more in cataclysm. Yea I had like 2 or 3 alts but who cares. Everytime I logged on I felt rewarded for my time and never felt like I wasn't getting anywhere. The only way to get anywhere and feel any tiny tiny portion of reward was doing dailies. Everything else was frustrating and a waste of time. That includes LFR.

Even in services you tell the service person what you want and they comply if they can. Granted they do have a large player pool but for GC to say that is basically him dictating to the player base that they need us to comply with their expectations. It doesn't work like that. If GC paid me then potentially but we pay him. I understand the problem hes in but their attempts to engineer like that are disappointing. It hasn't brought raiding back by any means and hasn't stopped the sub loss.

---------- Post added 2013-03-03 at 11:04 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Bashkar

Game is Unplayable versus Game is Fine.

not

Game is Unplayable versus Game is Perfect.

The 'hurting' side of this discussion seems to be completely missing that.

It's not that bad.

That's untrue. Or at least that's a gross mischaricterization. It's like the whole forced debate again. The game would only technicallly be unplayable if you didn't meet the system requirements or couldn't pay your sub. Well if that's the criteria for good game design then were screwed. Is your argument defending dailies so low that instead of saying their good and amazing content the best you can come up with is "it's not that bad". Well as you said before theirs 10 million players. For some, apparently quite a few, it is that bad. It's okay though I have no problem with you doing dailies and going as slow as you want. Blizzard can cater to both groups. I see nothing that precludes you from doing dailies and taking it nice and slow and Blizzard giving me back tabards to farm my face off for rep and increase my valor gains in dungeons. You can keep going slow as much as you like. Then tell me you don't feel forced.

I take solace in the fact that you have nothing to contribute. I've yet to have anyone tell me I'm wrong with anything beyond anecdotal evidence and opinions.

Edit: Again, I'm being berated for a point I'm not making. I'm not suggesting that the current system is flawless, nor am I suggesting that players should be kept on a treadmill out of some misplaced sense of superiority (as some posters would have you believe).

The root of my posts lies with the current system not being nearly as world-ending, game breaking, sky falling, and impossible to surmount as the lamenting posters on this forum would claim.

Except for the fact that it is a "sky is falling" situation. People are quitting over this and not just a few. There is a massive problem with finding new players for raids and even if old ones return they can't catch up at all meaning that bringing them along is not viable. All of this isn't going to get any better in 5.2 as there are no new dungeons to allow the vast majority to catch up.
Instead they're artificially slowed down, forced to rely solely on RNG and a painfully slow gear acquisition rate that forces them to do dailys for a long time with characters to actually be able to spend their points. Arguably shorter when playing an alt.

This means that a lot of people will eventually be left behind in the dust with no feasible way of catching up to the main field, that the main field itself will be stretched out over several progress steps, that raids will have difficulties with finding appropriate players with appropriate gear and a lot of frustration.

The current design is bad, their plans for the immediate future are bad and this hurts the community a lot. The afterwaves of this will be felt for a long time, even once they get rid of it. Because the current system is combinating the worst out of several expansions. People say that MoP PvP at the start was bad and a lot of people quit over it, but MoP PvE isn't much better for the most part, it just takes longer to drive people away.

Originally Posted by Bashkar

Which resulted in a dead, completely vacant world, and a full Stormwind/Orgrimmar of afk players just waiting for their queue to pop/

So what? The vast majority of people liked that. They liked being "done" with those zones, being done with things such as the Molten Front and not having to return, ever again. It was part of having "accomplished" something by knowing they don't have to repeat it. Dailys are not enjoyable even less so if you have to repeat them to infinity.

This is not a vacuum, there are other goals and objectives that need to be assessed. Something inevitably has to give. The goal was to get the world busy again, open up players to the rest of their server, cultivate world PvP, and add some length to a game that just six months ago had absolutely nothing going for it.

The game did just fine in Wotlk when it was at it's peak. There were no forced dailys, hanging out in Dalaran was a non issue, the only real problem was ICC going for way to long. This is fixing a problem that only exists in a vocal minorities head with a sledge hammer. It's like your child is crying and to solve that problem you're shooting it into the face with a magnum.
This solves the crying problem for a short time, but the long term problems will be quite severe and heavily outweight the gain of the child having stopped crying.

I understand that some players are hurting. And again, my posts are being looked at from a hostile "tough shit" angle when that is not the intent. The point is... it's not that bad. As much as people loathe, lament, and cry out with disdain... it's not that bad. The game is not dying because of dailies, and sensationalizing the effects of having reputations makes it harder for me to sympathize with you.

Their current system hasn't even come into full effect yet, just give it some more time and see how great things will be once people are spread out over two tiers. And it is not "a few" or "some" players, it is a great many. The forums are a very bad place for getting decent feedback for a great many things, but the players in game defending dailys and thinking them a great addition in their current incarnation are nigh non existant. Instead there's a great many anger and hatred of them. This isn't something you would want in a game, ever.

And in all honesty, I am at 67~ exalted factions. I have done most of those in game. And I absolutely hate and loath this new system. Yet I keep getting told by green equipped players with hardly 5 exalted factions who haven't even touched upon the Pandaria factions beyond the initial quest set to "stop being casual" and "suck it up". Kind of baffeling.

The divide ultimately boils down to what people think valor gear is, what they're entitled to, and what they should have to do in order to get it. I get the frustration, but it's not that bad.

You don't get to decide that, stop trying to make this decision for all of us.